Just read this thread. Remarkable work & person "Arasi". Want to buy the CD & listen to the compositions. I have attended only 2 concerts of Sumitra (once in Academy & before that at NGS mini hall couple of years back). At NGS Mini hall she sang Arasi composition ( I don't remember the composition) & announced the composer. I thought it was her mother's composition. Later someone told me it is not her mother but someone else. Delighted to know that someone else thro this forum.

KNV,
Sumitra is my second cousin's daughter. Yes, my niece! While Nick can't figure it all out (after all, he wasn't born in India), for us it's easy as ABC. Those from the western hemisphere cannot get beyond first cousins in figuring out relationships! Perhaps it's so with the younger generation in India too now--as it's with their knowledge of thamizh!

I should like to mention that by listening to the Sharade Saraswati Kuntalavarali song many times now i have learn't it and sing it very often including last year Navaratri.
I even sing it sometimes to my daughter to put her asleep. The lyrics are very simple and the song reminds me a lot of BhogeendraSaayinam.
As mentioned in the review above it is a very good song for teaching little children as it is very simple sangatis but still the meaning is profound and tune is beautiful. Already in Kuntalavarali there are very few songs so this song would be very welcome in concerts also.
My appreciations to Arasi ji and Sumitra Nitin ji on this composition.

HarishankarK,
Just saw your post. Thank you for learning to sing SAradE and for singing it to your daughter!

A simple little song in kunthalavarALi it is. I heard from Vasumathi Vasudevan of Florida that her young students are partial to it, and like to sing it in programs. The rAgA is appealing to them of course, and it sounds familiar to them, growing up in the west.

HarishankarK,
Just saw your post. Thank you for learning to sing SAradE and for singing it to your daughter!

A simple little song in kunthalavarALi it is. I heard from Vasumathi Vasudevan of Florida that her young students are partial to it, and like to sing it in programs. The rAgA is appealing to them of course, and it sounds familiar to them, growing up in the west.

Sarade is very beautiful and I liked the way it has short words / adjectives like a Sadasiva Brahmendral composition. No doubt kids will luv this song. In my family all four of us are partial to this song - every once in a while one of us starts this song and all the others join. Next time we got to Sringeri we are going to sing it there.

Harishankar,
Thanks for your liking the songs. I do not get the words by themselves. They are born with a tune with a few sangatis. All the singers have sung them as they came--of course, polishing them with their vidvat. My sangatis have been added to a few times. As Rajesh would kid me, I'm mostly an Adi tAlA person, tAlAs being a challenge to me. I have no clue about them, until I try them out. Some puzzle me, and the artistes have told me what it is, or, would say, this seems to jive with such and such the best! Sumitra Nitin (and her grandmother Ananthalakshmi Sadagopan, a guardian angel to us), Neela Ramgopal, Suryaprakash and Gayathri Girish (in the order of the release of the five volumes,Sumitra singing in two of them), added their own sheen to them, of course...

Thanks Harishankar. The one vidushi who has not sung in a CD but has been generous in including my songs (especially the unrecorded ones) was Jayalakshmi Santhanam--more than others have. Sumitra Nitin too includes my songs in a number of her concerts. She sang one even at MA once I am saying this because they don't easily sing an unknown composer in concerts which count...

Ravi,
You are right. AK did not tune her songs, but she knew more music than I do. Every time I happened to be around and a song came to her, I would hear her sing it softly--not read it out. If the tune smiths suggested a different rAgA, she would accept it willingly...